Lewis, J. Patrick 1942-

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LEWIS, J. Patrick 1942-

PERSONAL: Born May 5, 1942, in Gary, IN; son of Leo J. and Mary (Cambruzzi) Lewis; married Judith Weaver, August 29, 1964 (divorced, 1983); children: Beth, Matthew, Leigh Ann. Education: St. Joseph's College (Rensselaer, IN), B.A., 1964; Indiana University—Bloomington, M.A., 1965; Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1974.

ADDRESSES: Home—481 Foxtrail Circle E, Westerville, OH 43081. Agent—Joanna Lewis Cole, 532 West 114th St., New York, NY 10025. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Educator and children's book author. Otterbein College, Westerville, OH, professor of economics, beginning 1974; retired.

AWARDS, HONORS: The Tsar and the Amazing Cow named Ohioana Library Association Children's Book of the Year, 1989; Ohio Arts Council individual artist grant in adult poetry, 1991.

WRITINGS:

for children

The Tsar and the Amazing Cow, illustrated by Friso Henstra, Dial (New York, NY), 1988.

The Hippopotamusn't, illustrated by Victoria Chess, Dial (New York, NY), 1990.

Two-legged, Four-legged, No-legged Rhymes, illustrated by Pamela Paparone, Knopf (New York, NY), 1991.

Earth Verses and Water Rhymes, illustrated by Robert Sabuda, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1991.

The Moonbows of Mr. B. Bones, illustrated by Dirk Zimmer, Knopf (New York, NY), 1992.

The Fat-Cats at Sea, Knopf (New York, NY), 1994.

The Christmas of the Reddle Moon, Dial (New York, NY), 1994.

(Adaptor) The Frog Princess: A Russian Folktale, Dial (New York, NY), 1994.

Black Swan/White Crow, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1995.

The Boat of Many Rooms: The Story of Noah in Verse, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1997.

Boshblobberbosh: Runcible Poems for Edward Lear, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 1998.

Doodle Dandies: Poems That Take Shape, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1998.

(Adaptor) At the Wish of the Fish: An Adaptation of aRussian Folktale, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1999.

The Bookworm's Feast: A Potluck of Poems, Dial (New York, NY), 1999.

Earth and Us Continuous: Earth's Past and Future, Dawn Publications (Nevada City, CA), 2000.

Freedom Like Sunlight: Praisesongs for Black Americans, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2000.

A Burst of Firsts: Doers, Shakers, and Record Breakers, Dial (New York, NY), 2001.

Earth and You, a Closer View: Nature's Features, Dawn Publications (Nevada City, CA), 2001.

Good Mousekeeping: An Even Number of Odd Riddle-Rhymes, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2001.

The Shoe Tree of Chagrin Falls: A Christmas Story, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2002.

A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse andRhyme, Dial (New York, NY), 2002.

Arithme-Tickle: An Even Number of Odd Riddle-Rhymes, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2002.

Earth and Me, Our Family Tree: Nature's Creatures, Dawn Publications (Nevada City, CA), 2002.

The Last Resort, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2002.

Galileo's Universe, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2003.

Vherses: For Outstanding Females, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2003.

Crystal and Ivory: The Snowflake Sisters, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2003.

Blackbeard the Pirate King, National Geographic Society (Washington, DC), 2003.

(With Paul B. Janeczko) Wing Nuts: Screwy Haiku, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2004.

Clickety Clickety Electrickety: Science Riddles, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2004.

Please Bury Me in the Library: Poems about Books and Reading, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2004.

Contributor of reviews to periodicals, including Nation, Chicago Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle; contributor of poems to Gettysburg Review, New Renaissance, New Letters, and Kansas Quarterly; contributor of articles and reviews to professional journals.

SIDELIGHTS: In addition to teaching economics to college students at Ohio's Otterbein College for many years, J. Patrick Lewis writes poems for children. His subjects range from serious science to silly fun. In his A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme, for example, Lewis takes the reader on a tour of the world's geographical features, major cities, and continents in what he calls "travelling by poem." While having fun with exotic locales and place names, the poems also give young readers information about such things as longitude and latitude, make riddles out of geographical facts, relate the adventures of famous adventurers, and compare the relative sizes of natural formations and manmade objects. Mary M. Burns, writing in Horn Book, explained that in Lewis's poems, "witty observations are seasoned with memorable imagery." The poems in A World of Wonders, a critic for Publishers Weekly believed, will "intrigue and tickle young readers," while a Kirkus reviewer concluded that "young globetrotters and armchair travelers alike will happily climb aboard for the ride."

Lewis writes on environmental matters in the books Earth and Us Continuous: Earth's Past and Future, Earth and You, a Closer View, and Earth and Me, Our Family Tree. Earth and Us Continuous introduces readers to the ecosystems and land masses of the Earth in what Gillian Engberg in Booklist called "sweeping language and poetic metaphors." The poems in Earth and You, a Closer View "explore the larger community of life and celebrate the natural wonder of the world," according to a critic for Children's Digest. Patricia Pearl Dole in School Library Journal found that Earth and Me "is stately and serious and befits the ecological theme."

Lewis has also written poetry for sheer fun. In Good Mousekeeping: And Other Animal Home Poems, he playfully imagines what kinds of homes animals would construct if they could have all the comforts available in the homes of human beings. The dragon, for example, would naturally have a smoke alarm installed in his home, while the polar bear would have a good air conditioner. According to Kathleen Whalin, reviewing the book for School Library Journal, "no one is better at clever wordplay than Lewis." Lewis offers a batch of math riddles (with their answers) in Arithme-Tickle, which a Kirkus critic noted as proving that "sometimes story problems can be rhyming, funny, and delightfully illustrated." Brenda H. Frankel in Teaching Children Mathematics found that "this book is assuredly both mathematical and fun."

In a change of pace, Lewis moves to prose-writing for The Last Resort, a story that tells of an artist who visits a resort in order to find his lost creativity. There he meets a host of famous characters from both real-life and fiction, including actor Peter Lorre, the Little Mermaid, and pirate Long John Silver. The story's "text is filled with wordplay, memorable phrases, and allusions," Michael Cart noted in Booklist, while a critic for Publishers Weekly praised Lewis's "colorful and imaginative prose."

Lewis once commented: "The great ghosts of Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, A. A. Milne, Walter de la Mare, and others rattle around my house. They're all the inspiration that a poet for children could wish for. I've been very lucky, too, for the constant friendship, generosity, and criticism of Myra Cohn Livingston, one of America's finest children's poet/anthologists."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, September 1, 2001, Gillian Engberg, review of Earth and Us Continuous: Earth's Past and Future, p. 111; December 15, 2001, review of The Shoe Tree of Chagrin Falls: A Christmas Story, p. 731; February 1, 2003, Michael Cart, review of The Last Resort, p. 981.

Children's Digest, June, 2001, review of Earth andYou, a Closer View: Nature's Features, p. 32.

Horn Book, March-April, 2002, Mary M. Burns, review of A World of Wonders, p. 224.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2002, review of A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme, p. 48; March 15, 2002, review of Arithme-Tickle: An Even Number of Odd Riddle-Rhymes, p. 417.

Publishers Weekly, April 30, 2001, review of GoodMousekeeping: An Even Number of Odd Riddle-Rhymes, p. 77, and review of A Burst of Firsts Firsts: Doers, Shakers, and Record Breakers, p. 78; July 16, 2001, review of Arithme-Tickle, p. 147; January 7, 2002, review of A World of Wonders, p. 64; May 20, 2002, review of Arithme-Tickle, p. 69; July 29, 2002, review of The Last Resort, p. 72.

School Library Journal, June, 2001, Kathleen Whalin, review of Good Mousekeeping, p. 138; July, 2001, Nina Lindsay, review of A Burst of Firsts, p. 126; February, 2002, Jane Marino, review of The Shoe Tree of Chagrin Falls, p. 108; April, 2002, Patricia Pearl Dole, review of Earth and Me, Our Family Tree: Nature's Creatures, p. 114, Kathleen Whalin, review of Arithme-Tickle, p. 136, and Margaret Bush, review of A World of Wonders, p. 175.

School Library Media Activities Monthly, April, 2000, Carolyn Brodie, interview with J. Patrick Lewis.

Teaching Children Mathematics, May, 2003, Brenda H. Frankel, review of Arithme-Tickle, p. 550.